Underneath
by SynapticNeuron
Summary: A drafted combat Engineer is reported MIA after a lost battle. Can the rescue team find him in time, or will he be forced to see the darker side of the Auraxian war? (Rated M for language, excessive violence, and heavy subject matter.)
1. Captured

Discamer: I Own nothing pertaining to or associated with Planetside (2), it is property of SOE.

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**Chapter One: Captured**

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"Get down!" came a frantic scream over roaring gunfire and booming artillery, just seconds before the ground burst into a tower of shrapnel and dirt, followed by the musty air erupting into painfully muted silence as a tank shell impacted just a few feet from the rookie Engineer. He was torn from his turret by the shockwave and sent airborne, desperately flailing at the empty air.

_** Whump**_

The Engineer connected with the muddy ground hard, rolling twice before coming to a stop. Body sore and mind foggy, his world went from blurry to black, and he lost consciousness amidst the raging battle.

Some time later, a youthful woman's voice ripped him from his comatose state, "PFC Rivin James Reefer, Second Infantry division, age 22. Looks like he's out cold."

Rivin cautiously cracked an eye open, and nearly shot upright in surprise at what he saw. Kneeling beside him casually was a young New Conglomerate soldier, an Infiltrator from the looks of her body suit, holding his dog tags loosely in one hand.

"Strange name." commented an older man standing behind her. "Load him up in the Sunderer, we're moving out."

The woman gave an exasperated sigh and scooped up the feigning Engineer. "Why have_ I_ always gotta do the heavy lifting?"

"Heavy?" replied the older man, "He looks barely over 170, how is that heavy?"

"He's got full combat gear on, Derrus. That adds at least 80 pounds." The young woman replied, and with a grunt heaved Rivin into the back of a Sunderer and climbed in with him, slamming the doors behind her.

"I'll keep an eye on him, you drive!" She called out one of the windows, then shifted her gaze to the "unconscious" Engineer on the floor. He had his eyes wide open now, taking in every detail of his captor. It was a good thing his eyes were covered by dark goggles, otherwise she may have noticed.

She was wearing the standard issue NC Infiltrator suit, a cloth wrapping and bulky goggles obscuring her face from Rivin's gaze. He regarded her nimble frame with dubious resent, noting that she had been able to carry him, yet had the build of a twig. _People like that have no business being soldiers._

_ But these aren't soldiers, _he reminded himself_. They're mercenaries, pirates, and traitors. Undisciplined, disloyal, and treasonous._

"Enjoying yourself?" She asked for her own amusement, still unaware of his consciousness, and thus not expecting any response. Which is why she jumped in surprise when one came.

"Not especially." Rivin replied hoarsely.

"What the? You- you were awake?" She stammered, drawing a pistol and leveling down it at his head.

"Very observant. Someone give this girl a medal."

"Watch your mouth, Terran pig. I'm the one with the gun."

Rivin opted to stay silent after that, not only because he was afraid of death, but also because he wanted to gather some good information about the NC's battle plans. Should Provisional Commander Waterson catch wind of it, it would be enough to bump him up to lieutenant... or at least corporal. The two rode in silence for a while, before the Engineer dragged himself up into a seat and popped off a question that had been stewing in his mind ever since his deployment.

"Why blue and yellow? It looks childish."

"Shut up." the Infiltrator commanded.

"Okay, okay, Fine. Didn't mean to question your naive idealism."

"Talkative one, aren't you?" she said after fixing him a stern glare that he couldn't see, ignoring his previous comment.

"I'm just trying to manipulate you. So far it's working." he said lightly, trying to keep her on edge and under pressure, maybe she'd break if he kept it up.

"What's your name?" the Infiltrator asked out of the blue, and a little too pleasantly, probably trying to get Rivin to let his guard down.

"You already know. You read it off my dog tags, remember?" then, after a short pause he added, "What's yours?"

"Why do you care?"

"You know my full name, exact age, and rank. I think it's only fair that-"

"Tressa." she interrupted.

"Odd name."

"You're one to talk, Mr. Rivin James Reefer."

"Touché."

The conversation ended there, and the two sat in silence for the rest of the drive, exchanging unseen glares and thinking of things no sane person should. Eventually the Sunderer took a few sharp turns and came to a rolling stop in front of a small, square building.

"No funny business." The Infiltrator stated, her tone suddenly dark, "We destroyed the Republic's rebirthing matrix. You're mortal."

Rivin's chest tightened at this. He suspected she was bluffing, since her claim was so abrupt and outright ridiculous. But such an event was so feared among the ranks that the very mention of it was enough to send a wave of shivers down his spine.

He decided to not to call her bluff, instead aiming to gather information about their whereabouts.

"Where exactly are we?" He prodded, jumping down from the Sunderer's passenger bay and splashing into the mucky ground below. _Still on Hossin at least._

There was no answer to his question, just his arms being forced behind his back and a set of sturdy handcuffs being clapped onto his wrists.

"Somewhere you'll never leave." came the delayed reply from the older man who had showed up beside the female Infiltrator. _What was his name? Derran? No, Derrus. Better remember that._

"Tress, take him to the Hold and make sure he stays alive. We need him for interrogation." he added, gesturing towards the building in front of them.

"Interrogation?" Rivin inquired.

"Interrogation." Derrus replied unhelpfully.

"Torture. You mean torture." Rivin stated, his voice void of any humor.

Derrus just smiled and walked away. He clambered back into the still-running Sunderer and drove off down the winding road.

"You people are sick." Rivn spat at the young Infiltrator.

"Speak for yourself Terran." She replied, forcing him toward the small building in front of them with a stern shove.

"I mean really fucked up in the head. You're no better than-" he was cut off a gun pressed to his temple.

"I'd keep my thoughts to myself if I were you." She threatened, "Or I'll blow them out the side of your head."

Rivin swallowed hard. _Did they really destroy the Matrix? No... no that's impossible._ They reached the building and entered, but with the gun still pointed to his temple Rivin hadn't the courage to look around much. _Coward! _he scolded himself, _You don't actually believe this insane woman, she's lying! The Matrix is untouchable!_ But dispite his self-scolding, he couldn't bear the thought of loosing his life like this. He was an engineer, not a soldier, and bravery was not something he had ever really valued. _Cowards survive. Heros die. _A more logical part of him said, further reinforcing his desire to play it safe.

He was turned toward a dark staircase in the corner that probably led down to the "Hold" Derrus had mentioned. At the bottom of the staircase there stretched out before him a long, dark hallway with solid steel doors lining each side, muffled cries of pain and pleas for mercy seeping through a number of the cold portals and into the dusty hallway beyond.

_ A war prison._

This was a relatively new tactic the NC were employing. Capturing enemies and holding them in massive prisons so they couldn't be out in the field fighting, then getting information out of them by any means necessary. There had been rumors of torture and mistreatment, but nothing confirmed. Until now, that is.

Rivin was thrown roughly into an open cell, the door slamming shut behind him with an echoing crash.

"I'll be back soon. Don't try anything sneaky, or you die. For good." Called Tressa through the door, then briskly walked away.

After her light footsteps had faded, the Engineer sat up and took in his surroundings for the first time since they arrived. The room was dimly lit and had a haze of dust about it. A thick metallic table stood in the center with a chair on either side. _No torture implements,_ he noted... perhaps he had these rebels pegged wrong. Maybe they were going to do this peacefully.

"No..." the Engineer grumbled under his breath, "No they won't. They can't." _The NC are all traitors and terrorists, they don't do nothing in the name of peace. Only **we** do that. _His loyalistic train of thought derailed itself over the course of a few minutes, and gave way to a contemplation of the one advantage he had over his captors, and the one thing that gave him hope; They didn't know what he quite literally had up his sleeve. This gave him the element of surprise should his life ever be threatened.

Deciding to free his hands before it was too late, Rivin flexed his right wrist and grinned wickedly into the darkness. "Amateurs." he mused, his Chainblade slipping out of his sleeve and into his awkwardly twisted hand. He positioned it over the chain holding the cuffs together.

"Let's see your true colors." He whispered, then activated the Chainblade.


	2. Heroes and Villains

Disclaimer: I own nothing.

**Chapter 2: Heroes and Villains**

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The forward garrison was quiet, save for the croaking and chirping of the swamp-dwelling natives. Deep under the muddy surface, the red clad soldiers slept fitful sleeps inside one of three underground bunkers, tossing and turning... dreaming the dreams of the near-insane. Most of them were mere husks of the men they once were, driven half-mad by the constant death and rebirth, but they kept fighting. Some for a lost hope of returning home to Earth, others to prove to themselves that they were different from those who went before, those who had lost their minds and were removed from the Matrix.

"Reefer, Wilson, Kerner! On your feet! Form up outside in five!" Three of the soldiers were woken early for a special mission. A rescue mission. These jobs were rare on Auraxis, as most soldiers just offed themselves and refabricated back in friendly territory if they got lost. If they were captured, which was the case for some recent MIA cases, the Republic would dispatch small rescue teams and have the missing person back within a day. They couldn't risk any greenhorns spilling out information under threat of torture.

"I assume you three know what your job is?" Inquired the garrison commander after the three groggy men had tugged on their combat gear and lined up outside.

"Sir yes sir!" came the unanimous reply.

"Good. Wilson, Kerner, get to the dam and meet up with your team leader. Reefer, I need to talk to you before you go."

Wilson and Kerner trotted off towards the nearest lattice warp station, leaving the other two to their talk.

"Reefer, I hear that kid that went missing is your brother, any truth to that?"

"Yes sir, he's my younger brother."

"You are aware your objective is to find and kill him? I trust you won't compromise that last part due to any your personal connections."

"No sir. I know what has to be done."

"Good. See to it that he gets back to safety before its too late. You're dismissed, go catch up to the others."

"Sir, if you don't mind me asking, why is it that we have to kill him? Couldn't we get an air evac? Or escort him back to base?"

"You have your orders soldier. I've nothing to say on the matter."

With that the garrison commander stalked off to his quarters, and the soldier made his way over to the warp terminal to catch up with his squadmates.

"Why's it gotta be Rivin who gets captured... of all eight-hundred-thousand of us, why him?" Grumbled the distressed brother as he selected a warp location and beamed his body to the rally point.

. . .

Rivin swallowed dryly, tense with anticipation as he sat alone in the dimly lit holding cell awaiting his captor's return. Having recovered from his shell-shock and being fully awake for a good two hours now, he was thinking a little too clearly.

_The Matrix... it's still running. They didn't destroy it. They didn't destroy it. They didn't destroy it. Oh God please let it still be running! I'm an engineer not a soldier, I shouldn't even be here! What does death feel like? Don't think about that. Think about something else._

Such were the essence his thoughts for the past two hours, as he slowly got more and more fearful of that ultimate end, that all-enveloping darkness called death. It was something he'd never experienced before, a result of only having been combat active for about three months, and now there was threat of it being permanent. His older brother, Jacob Reefer, had died quite a few times, but he refused to talk about what it felt like around his younger brother. This fact worried Rivin all the more, and he began to shake and draw shallow breaths.

He wasn't just afraid of death at this point. He was outright terrified of it.

The engineer pulled his goggles up to wipe his eyes of tears he hated to admit existed, only to find the dust to agitate his eyes even further, drawing warm, salty tears down his cheeks.

As if planned for the worst possible moment, the cell door burst and in stormed the Infiltrator from earlier. She took a seat across form the engineer, who had hastily put his hands behind his back in order to not expose his trump card just yet.

"What do you know about this?" The rebel asked flatly, sliding a data tablet over to Rivin.

"Uh... nothing. I've never seen that before." he said, referring to the odd blueprint on the screen.

"No? I have trouble believing that." she commented, fixing him with a death glare, which quickly turned into an expression of both confusion and painful amusement.

"Wait... have you been crying? And how did you get your goggles off?" she asked, a slight smile crossing her lips.

"It's dusty in here, if you had your goggles off you'd be crying too."

"That doesn't answer my second question." she pointed out, amusement now gone at his logical excuse for crying.

"I uh... um. I just-" he fumbled for a good line of reasoning, but was silenced by the Infiltrator's movement to draw her sidearm.

"Show me your hands. Now." She commanded, pulling the pistol from it's holster at her side.

"No." he replied, raising one hand to his helmet to pull his goggles back down, and gripping his Chainblade under the table with the other.

With speed only years of training or sheer terror can produce, the engineer leapt over the table and swung his blade in a shallow arc, connecting with the Infiltrators head. There was a sharp crack and an electrical fizzle as her shields fell.

Recovering from the prisoner's attack, she spun back and fired two shots in quick succession, one striking Rivin in the chest, the other nicking his arm.

"No you don't!" the engineer shouted as the his captor leveled her weapon at his head and squeezed the trigger.

A click resounded in his ears, a familiar vibration rippled his hand. Time seemed to slow as the terrified engineer ducked and spun towards the Infiltrator, using the momentum to swing his knife upwards with tremendous force as the Infiltrators weapon fired.

The blade made contact with the pistol's mid section, it's mono-molecular edge slicing through the cheap metal with relative ease. The weapon flew from the cloaker's hands, the two halves clacking to the ground some distance away, exposed interworkings still smoking from the recently fired round.

Adrenaline coursed through Rivin's veins, pushing him to do things he'd never have done in his right mind.

With a swift motion, motivated by fear and steadied by fierce hatred, he plunged the spinning Chainblade deep into her neck and twisted, tearing the weapon out sideways with a shower of crimson fluid.

The engineer watched as the slender body fell back, thumping to the ground and lying still. Too still.

Blood pooled in and around the gaping wound that used to be his captor's neck, strangled gurgles and sputtering marking the end of her life. There was a moment of silence as the engineer waited for all life to leave the body, teeth clenched so tight he tasted blood._  
_

As the adrenaline wore off, Rivin looked on what he had done in shock. _What did I just do?_

Suddenly, feeling irrationally convicted, the engineer stooped down beside his dead captor and pulled off her blood-soaked shemagh and goggles.

He closed his eyes at what he saw. She was young, probably younger than him. But what really made him sick, was not the gruesome crevice of her neck, nor the pained expression frozen on her soft features, but what passively rolled down her cheeks and pittered onto the dusty floor below.

Tears.


End file.
